Why does my secondary gpu activity stays at 0%

[MadGunn33]

hello im having problems here i have two video cards that are XFX ATI RADEON HD 5770 i have them crossfired ive looked at GBU-Z and it doesnt even show the memory usage? theres no activity stays at 0% not even peaking to 1 or 2% when i try playing a game

 

[DarkSable]

Do you have a crossfire bridge? Are you using crossfire bridges? Are you even playing a game that supports crossfire?

Also, those are very low end cards - even if they crossfire without serious issues, you won't get much performance out of them. (Even two 7970s don't get double the performance.)

 

[MadGunn33]

yes i have one and its connected to both cards and im pretty new to this i installed them a year ago yet during the time rarely played anything i know that i need to upgrade on a new gpu but for now im using what i got and for some reason i cant seem to get my secondary one working at the same peak as my first gpu it doesnt seem to do anything expect stay powered on

 

[photonboy]

GPU-Z may not be monitoring both GPU's correctly or may just be taking an AVERAGE.

Regardless, if you want to ensure that your Crossfire setup is working correctly it's best to do this:

*Run a benchmark utility on a game (like Metro 2033 or Far Cry 2) if possible. If not, find a SAVE GAME to load and monitor the frame rate manually using FRAPS.

Do this for Crossfire enabled and with Crossfire disabled. If you see a definite improvement with Crossfire enabled then things are working fine.

FYI, the worst amount of micro-stutter occurs when you have two low-end cards like you have. You'd have a far better experience with a SINGLE card. 3x Crossfire also reduces micro-stutter considerably but low-end card don't support more than 2xCrossfire.

If you had an i5-750 or better CPU I'd recommend considering a better, single GPU card like this HD7870 2GB model: http://us.ncix.com/products/?sku=73627&vpn=HD7870-DC2-2GD5-V2&manufacture=ASUS&promoid=1030

 

[MadGunn33]

Ahhh your right I tried it put exactly like you said on Starcraft 2 I was reading 8-20 on ultra with some lag and when I disable crossfire it jumps up to 60! With no lag working perfectly i even tried skyrim on ultra and work flawlessly Guess ill just take out my second video card and put it up somewhere thanks for the help I'm just gonna rebuild a new desktop all together since what I got is outdated!

 

[MadGunn33]

Best answer selected by MadGunn33.

 

[Viking2121]

Whoa, Now why are you taking the other 6770 out? Not understanding the other posts on why your taking the card out. 2 6770's will perform better then a single 7870, but Not all games will support it, That is why AMD (ATI) now made drivers where you can pick and choose which crossfire profile to work with that game. For ex:

My 5850's in Dayz doesn't work well, Looking at MSI Afterburner, My 2nd 5850 isn't even being touched, So I leave the game and open CCC and gaming tab scroll all the way down and select from the drop down "Use AMD Pre-defined Profile" and type in BF3 and select BF3.exe from the list and then apply, start up DayZ my performance nearly doubled in the game to 50fps looking in the same spot in the armory by myself. Thats with a 970 mobo x16/x4

You will have to play with the settings to get the performance just right. I do not get any micro stutter, but I have on some games, but finding a different profile to run with the game cured that. SLI is no better and have to do the same thing in the Nvidia Control Panael for some games. Yes a single 7850/70 will be easy to mess with, less power, don't have to worry about profiles.

Also if just plugged in the other 6770 and think you will get a performance boost, you wont, You will need to re install the driver for it to work properly.

 

[photonboy]

I agree.
I don't know why he's removing his second card.

Also, his numbers don't make much sense to me. 8-20 FPS with Crossfire then jumping to 60FPS in SC2 on ULTRA?

I wanted him to figure out how to make sure his Crossfire was WORKING, not disable it.

He should start simple:
1. Physically install ONE CARD ONLY, then:
Use a benchmark utility or game benchmark that works with Crossfire.

2. Add the second card, setup for Crossfire then rebench the same thing. The FPS might be 40% to 75% higher but not lower.

If he has problems enabling Crossfire that's what he needs to figure out but running GPU-Z isn't the way. You need to run a benchmark or game and compare the frame rates.

*Perhaps he has other issues. Here's a good list:
1) update the motherboard BIOS if it needs it
2) then run MEMTEST to ensure RAM works
3) Reinstall the latest driver for the motherboard MAIN CHIPSET
4) Make sure other drivers are up to date (audio etc)
5) Uninstall and reinstall the latest AMD driver
6) *Isn't there a CROSSFIRE PROFILE file in addition to the AMD driver/Control Panel software?
http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/pages/crossfirex-app-profiles.aspx

 

[Viking2121]

Also I had a problem with GPU-Z reading my 2nd 5850, I used MSI After Burner for it, You can get it from Majorgeeks, don't need to signup on MSI's site. Certin games just wont work on Crossfire. For Instants, The COD series never seem to benefit from it, Min FPS went up, but not Max FPS, Both GPU's are being used. Like Call of Duty 4, 1 Of may cards can keep a near 250fps at 1080p, certain spots it can drop to 200 looking in the same spot on map Ambush, With both cards enabled, my FPS is around 220 So not much of an improvement, but avg FPS did go up which is good.

CCC you can make profiles like so, Need For Speed: World does not work at all with Crossfire, so I forced it with the BF3.exe profile FPS is always in the 100s in the game now.